Andy Robinson's last visit to the Telstra Stadium ended in defeat after a last-minute lineout call went wrong but the England forwards coach had his revenge on Saturday.

With less than two minutes of extra time remaining, England had a lineout 30 yards from the Australian line and they threw long to Lewis Moody at the back, winning the ball and setting up a series of drives that culminated in Jonny Wilkinson dropping the winning goal.

It had been so different back in 2001 when the Lions needed to win a late lineout to go for the try required to win the series against the Wallabies, only for Justin Harrison to snatch the ball from Martin Johnson's grasp.

"The margins are small at the highest level," said Robinson, the Lions' assistant coach in 2001. "Jonno's call two years ago was the right decision, but we did not execute it properly. In the final, we called it long because that is where we throw when we are going to go for a drop goal and it came off. Two lineouts, two totally different results, but that is rugby."

England were pushed all the way by Australia, having had to battle for a number of victories en route to the final. South Africa, Samoa and Wales all asked serious questions. "There was never a moment when I wondered if we were going to fail," said Robinson. "The final was our closest match and to have lost after dominating the game for so long would have been devastating. The players had remained focused all the way through, which allowed them to come good towards the end of games and they did it again."

The England flanker Neil Back put that down to the hat-trick of grand slam disappointments England suffered between 1999 and 2001, when they fell in Wembley, Edinburgh and Dublin at the final hurdle. "They were all hard defeats to take and we learned from each and every one of them," said Back. "Scotland in 2000 was a watershed because we tried to play expansive rugby in wet conditions.

"We did not make that mistake over here, and though we were crucified in the Australian media for our tactics in the semi-final against France they were spot on. The fact we suffered those three heartbreaking defeats made us much harder mentally.

"Australia did superbly to battle back after we led by nine points at half-time, but we always backed ourselves and the pain we had experienced of losing crucial matches in the past saw us through."

Lawrence Dallaglio agreed. "When you look at our recent record, we have won 22 out of our last 23 matches and the one defeat hardly counted because it was a friendly against France a couple of months ago. We learned the hard way how to handle ourselves in big matches."